Tuesday, 30 June 2015

Anna and Elsa - Frozen (2013)

A book involving siblings

Amanda: Perfectly Ella is the first book that springs to mind for me - lots of sisters and lots of laughs, but also Penryn and Paige from Penryn and the End of Days, and Percy and Tyson from Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus. So much sibling love, beautiful.
Stacie: I'm going to say You Against Me byJenny Downham, while looking through my list of books I'd read on goodreads to get inspiration, it was one that just jumped out at me because basses around a brother and sister relationship (and other things haha). However I would also say The Vampire Diaries or Forbidden

Rapunzel - Tangled (2010)

A book that made you emotional

Amanda: So many books I could choose right now, honestly, there's a craaaaaazy amount, but Half Wild is a book I'm still completely not over yet. So many LGBT shippy feels, but most of all, why do that Green? Why my favourite? MY MARCUS.
Stacie: As in recently? I think the only book to make me feel intense amounts of emotion this year would be All The Bright Places (and Heir of Fire) I'm still trying to recover from being punched in the gut by that book.

Saturday, 27 June 2015

I'm an avid believer in reading books that other people maybe haven't quite shouted from the rooftops about, and that's all fine and dandy, but because of this, I don't tend to stray too far into hyped up territories. They're heavily guarded by dragons that require pieces of your soul to enter, and the people housed up in these hyped up areas, they're crazy and try drag you into their dangerous depths of looneyville, BUT, I have escaped from these territories and visited rival, smaller, and more calmer villages and farms, so today, with thanks to Charnell for tagging me, I'm going to introduce you to my black pet sheep. Baa..

1. A Popular Book/Series You Didn't Like. At All

The Winner's Curse was always a book I was completely and utterly convinced I wouldn't love, but I never for one moment expected to find it so dry, so boring and so unappealing. Kestrel just - ugh, I really couldn't with that girl, did I read a different book to everyone else? The Immortal Rules really broke my heart when I didn't love it, it was just - meh. Nothing felt as amazing as I had expected, although I do have the sequels; guess who's going to be punishing herself soon.. And don't even get me started on The Infinite Sea, I'm genuinely convinced everybody who loved that book is crazy. WHAT EVEN IS THAT BOOK? Nothing happened. Nothing made sense. It was so damn boring. You can guarantee I'll end up reading The Last Star though. * le sigh*

Thursday, 25 June 2015

Recycling old content is frowned upon when it comes to blogging and it really shouldn't be. Why should we use time and effort putting together content that will probably get lost in our archives if we didn't stay on top of promoting them? It makes no sense, therefore recycling, or at the very least, adding to previously published content is a great way to draw attention to a topic that newer readers may have missed. Here's how.

Add updates to previous posts

You can almost guarantee that when a blog publishes a tutorial and it has an 'updated' section, they've updated the post and republished it as a fresh new piece of content, and guess what? It works. New readers and subscribers who may not have seen that content before get the juicy details other readers have before, as well as keeping your more loyal following in the loop with the newest information. If you're going to be revamping a post with new information, I would advise you make it one that's over 6 months old.

Create a follow-up complimentary post

Written a post about a subject that you could expand on, or a post that you've had a change of heart about? Have you written something that you create a catch-up or update version with new information? Do it. I've done this many times with my Commitment to Series and my Series Relationship posts, recapping the last year and creating new challenges for myself when it comes to series. People like to know what you've been up to and it's always exciting for you to see how you've changed too.

Combine content into an ebook

If you've written a number of posts about a certain subject, or you have a blog series that's buried beneath new content, it's pretty easy to produce an ebook and combine these posts together into one easy to read format. You could make the book available for new subscribers, giving them a quick snap view of the type of content they can come to expect from you, while also getting use out of your older worthy content. You could also sell the book if you fancied making a few quick bucks.

Switch up the format of your post

Got an old post that could be transferred into an infographic for easy sharing across Twitter and Pinterest? Switch it up. Got a post that you could vlog about instead? Switch it up. Got a post or tutorial you could turn into powerpoint slides? Do it. Keep content fresh and looking good is something all bloggers struggle with and strive to be better at - by switching up some older content and making it look brand new can give you a new lease of life, and if all goes well, it might inspire you do it again.

Link up related posts below new content

Those widgets that appear below other peoples posts showing you similar content or posts you should check out. They not only help your bounce rate, but they can direct readers to older content too. Many people recommend using LinkWithin, and personally, I've never had much of a problem with it myself, although I do prefer to link up my own recommended posts similar by categories or type of post, or if it's reviews, by author or genre. Pointing out content that people will love is one of the easiest things to do, and once you've somebody clicking around, chances are, they'll explore your blog further.

Link up content in your sidebar

I tend to focus on sharing the posts readers like most at Nellie and Co. but generally, you can link whatever takes your fancy in your sidebar and people will check it out. Want to get more attention to content you loved, or content that refers to subject that's 'big' in the news lately. Link it up. Want to show off posts your readers loved to draw new readers to? Link it up. Shake things up every now and then so your readers can constantly be impressed and surprised by the content you have, and make sure you have some graphics that help with linking up any content. Visuals gain more attention than simple words, make your content work for you.

Share a round-up of related posts for specific audience

Have a collection of posts that would be perfect for new bloggers? Create on big post and share your links in a giant link-up. Same can be done for any content you have a think would not only be helpful for your readership, but positive for the content in itself. Something similar to my giant monthly link-ups I do with community content can be done easily for your own content. Take two or three times in the year to refer to older content of different subjects, for designers, for bloggers, for reviewers, for authors, for whoever your target audience is. People like things handed to them, give them what they want, and they'll lap it up.

Stop letting your old content get lost in your archives, get creative and find ways to bring them out of the dark depths and into the light of your new readers and across the board of social networks. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, so get thinking, there's bound to be many many more. Do you revamp and recycle your content, and if so, how do you do it?

Monday, 22 June 2015

I've been co-blogging here with Stacie now for over 6 months, and wow, does that time seemed to have flown by. It feels like only a few weeks ago we made our beautiful blog public, and now look at us. Loyal following, pretty design, it's all really rather unbelievable.. but I have a confession to make to you all..

I'm leaving Beautiful Bookish Butterflies.

Hold up now. I don't want you to jumping to any conclusions, so sit down, stay calm, and I shall explain.

It may or may not have been noticeable to you all, but Stacie and I have been struggling with a number of things in our lives, and those number of things have, in the past few months, affected how, when and why we blog. I cannot vouch for Stacie, but I know she's had it tough lately, which is why I, as co-blogger, stepped up to the plate and took hold for a while. Something changes when you go from a routine of co-blogging back to solo-blogging, even if it is for a short amount of time. You're ideas are the only ideas being published, your thoughts are the only ones out there, you're content is the content that gives your blog it's brand, and when you're actually meant to be a co-blog, that's not fair.

Prince Maxon may be twenty-two years old now, but he's still haunted by his boyhood abduction and torture in Hell. To deal with his past, Maxon limits his present-day activities to killing demons and seducing women. No long-term relationships. No combat too dangerous. No problem, right?

Wrong.

Maxon’s life has stalled out. The old thrills aren't there anymore, either on the battlefield or in the bedroom. While staking out his next fight, Maxon meets what seems like just another girl after a good time. What he gets is a close encounter with Lianna, a lady warrior with ties to the mysterious elemental rulers called the monarkki. It's love at first fight. Trouble is, Lianna's running from a dark history of her own, and her elemental enemies are closing in. When Lianna gets taken, Maxon realizes that after years of wrong choices and dead ends, the right woman is worth risking it all.

Ugh, why wasn't this the amazing sequel and look into Maxon's life I was hoping for? I'm not sure if there was something about my expectations, or my slightly less impressed state with Armageddon, or that there was overall more character and development, plot and action issues, but this was not what I had in mind. Credit where credit is due, this is a really good sequel, and I'm still going to continue reading the instalments that follow, I'll just be sure to lower my expectations this time around.

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Whenever I'm searched for tutorials, one of the first things I check is the date in which the tutorial was posted. Nobody likes searching for answers only to find that, low and behold, these answers are years old, and you've wasted half an hour looking for something that's hidden amongst fossils. That's because Google finds webpages related to your search based on SEO, not by recent date or when it was published. Did you know that you can narrow your search down to a specified time period? Perfect if you're looking for a tutorial that isn't time friendly. Here's how.

When searching for anything in Google, you have Search Tools..

Search tools can be used to narrow any type of search down to a more specified search. As you can see, the current search results are ordered in terms of best match or most related to the subject you've searched, and that's great, but we want to specify a search time in order to find time restricted blog tutorials.

Click on 'Search Tools' and an extension will appear;

You now have different options to search either by country, which would order the search results in terms of country you specify, and by time, which is the option we're focusing on today.

Click on 'Any time' to be given more options like the following:

This is where Search Tools comes to life. You can now specify any time period you would like to search within. For blog tutorials, I usually use the 'Custom Range' feature which allows you to search within a period of time, for me, that's 6 months, and if that doesn't provide results I want, I search for within a year, in order to keep myself updated as close as possible. In this example, I've chosen 'Last Month'.

Click on a time period to search. Your search results will reorder.

See how the posts have changed now you've searched within a time period? You can still change how the results are shown by choosing by relevance or date, however, I usually stick with relevance. With the internet and everything on it changing by the day, it's sometimes hard to find tutorials that are up to date, recent and actually related to what it is your searching, and this is the best way I've found to locate time restricted articles. The Search Tool's feature can be used for almost anything - it's worth taking a look and seeing it if can benefit you.